What did you do with yours today?

There's this thing about us humans.
No other species has it. Not like us.
This wonderful, awesome thing.

We don't use it very often
and we don't get to see it very often
but when we do...

When we do, and we recognise it,
we give each other goosebumps
and bring tears to each other's eyes.

When we do see it, we know it in every cell,
that this is what makes everything worthwhile,
this rare, precious, and yet so easily available thing.

If only we could remember to ask ourselves,
What did I do with my humanity today?
Anything? Nothing? And ask again tomorrow.

A new pen.

In the dream, she is sure it is Him, for the awe and terror and joy that overwhelm her are like nothing she has known before. She falls to her knees and dares not seek His face out in the brightness.

There is a thud, and another, and another, and with a start she raises her eyes to see around the flare of light at His feet, books, fallen and falling.

These were My books, she hears Him say. These are what they have made of my books. Now, these are their books.

His voice sounds angry, yet also sad. Perhaps this is what betrayed sounds like. Perhaps it is the sound of heartbreak.

She can do nothing but watch as the pages separate and lift from their bindings. They flutter and swirl in a gentle tornado that her eyes see but her skin cannot sense. She glimpses lettering and language, ancient and modern. Some she understands. Some she can only recognise. Some she has never seen before.

They are all around her, these bits of paper with their words in all the voices of her world. They whizz past and she thinks, it is just like magic! But this is just a dream, she is reminding herself, when He cries,

Truth!

The papers stop where they are, in mid-air. Letters and words slide off easily, they float lightly off the pages, and they are transforming into a trellis of wings, delicate long-necked birds that circle and lift Him. She feels Him rise like a deep breath inhaled, He is lifting, and lifted by these birds of Truth.

But then He sighs and exhales another word.

Lies…

And she continues to watch, as on the hovering pages, the remaining letters and words congeal and clump together. They drop to the ground in clots, as quick and easy as mercury, but thick and dark like tar, and they ooze over to His feet and they hold Him, and they weigh Him down.

And though there is more Truth, it is the Lies that have more weight, and He is being pulled down. Like quicksand, she thinks, but pulled down into what? There is nothing beneath Him. And how can this be? Who can defeat Him? Of all that she has been taught, she has known one thing to be true:  He is undefeatable. And yet He sinks before her. 

She looks around frantically for something to save Him, but there is only page after page, every one empty, still fluttering. Hovering. Waiting? They are white and blank, and that is when she feels the pen between her fingers, and she can sense the smile in His voice as He whispers a word again, and she understands.

Truth.

She puts her pen to His paper. She closes her eyes. She opens her mind. She begins to write. She feels Him return to her. And then she wakes up.

Just a dream, she tells herself, that’s all it was. It means nothing. It is memories and wishes skipping their way into a little bedtime fairy tale. It is neurons playing in her brain:  painting pictures and faking feelings. This is all. She is sure.

She lays there in her bed and finds herself recalling a war that ended with oil spills. She thinks about the tar patches that clotted beach sand. The sand washed off easily. The tar stained and scarred her feet for days. She remembers white cormorants swooping down from a dusty grey sky only to suffocate in wet blackness. And she remembers the instructions, of how they needed to be held gently but firmly, held and cleansed and set free, pure once more, in safer waters if they were to be saved from man’s pollution and self interest.

She is no poet. She is no prophet. She is just a dreamer, awoken, with a new pen. She feels rising in her again terror, wonder and joy, but now she is awake, and and logic tells her she is alone. The terror takes over:  she places a pill under her tongue and closes her eyes.

But even as she melts away, she knows.

Tomorrow, she will write.

Not the same thing.

What I say and what you hear

are not the same thing.

My words, shared, become yours to interpret.

You may take them and wrap them around

Your perspective, and make it look prettier.

You may decide that my words polish your armour.

But if you stop, and think, and question,

you may find that my words don’t belong there.

You may want to put aside my words,

or, I hope,

you may want to put aside your perspective,

and look from mine for a while,

and see which way sees truer.

Bitter.

Plant growing wild outside demolished old villa 2014

 

The truth is a bitter root, that must be hunted for. There are clues here and there as to where we may find it. We must use all our senses. Look for signs in the shapes of leaves, or how thickly they grow. Listen to the sounds of birds that tell us something is here. Or the sounds of silence that tell us something is so fearful that few dare venture near it.

We can feel for it with our hands. It may be dry and crumble between our fingers. It may stick stubbornly, or leave a mark that is hard to wipe off. Breathe it in, and see if it chokes us, or nourishes us. We must beware if it tastes too pleasant.

Because the truth is rarely pleasant. It is bitter, and indeed quite fearful. We may leave it where it is, for others to find. Or we may choose to make the terrifying effort of digging it up. If we do, we must not throw it away. Unpleasant as it may seem, we hold something infinitely valuable in our hands. But even if we do choose to throw it away, it will not matter. We can cast it aside, crush it underfoot, even burn it. But we will never kill it. The truth can be silenced, suffocated, ignored, executed, and voted out of our existence. It does not die. It remains what it is, and it will surface again and again, whether or not we acknowledge it.

If we nurture it and nourish it, it will do the same for us, and for all the generations to come. It will be bitter, and may cause us some pain. It will be worth it.

Do you have a truth? Has it come to you too easily? Without questions or doubts or investigations? Without pain or fear or bewilderment? There is no "your" or "my" truth. Wherever there is a truth, it can only be one. Have you found it? I am still looking.

Move over Huck and Tom, here comes Satan.

Like most people, I just thought Mark Twain wrote about Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Just seeing those names now, in my mind’s eye I can still spy Huck wading through weeds and water, still watch Tom painting that fence. Can't you?

Mostly, I thought Mark Twain lived a charmed life, travelling around the world, or ruminating on steamers and thinking up funny things to say. More recently, I realised that not everything he thought up was funny, and that much of what he thought – and said – and then wrote – was serious. 

Perhaps even then, people had already labelled him the funny guy, or perhaps he was just being cautious, and wanted to ensure his continued survival in a tribe
where applauding sycophants can easily turn into hostile executioners when
they feel their idea of the world has been threatened.

From what I have come across so far, all of Mark Twain’s writing on deathly important
matters is cotton-wrapped in humour, tied with a pretty little bow of satire, knotted firmly
with sarcasm. In the past few months I have come across several.

His War Prayer wrenched my heart, and you can watch a short film made of it here.

But it was Twain’s Letters From The Earth that really wowed me. Setting aside
his writing or cleverness, what wowed me most is that until a week ago, I never knew
that Letters From The Earth existed, or that it was Twain's last piece of work.
It’s a very clever and funny piece of fiction. Why, when the world was introducing me
to Huck and Tom, did it leave this out?

That’s a rhetorical question. I fancy I already know the answer. The hero of this story

is Satan, and the story itself is told to his fellow angels Michael and Gabriel, through
a series of letters in which he describes what he sees on a visit to our planet. It’s a probably
painful dig at traditional beliefs of who we are and where we come from.

But isn’t pain a part of life, an important part that leads to growth or escape from danger?

And aren’t we encouraged in schools and universities to study, explore, think for ourselves,
question, search, learn, grow, challenge and be open to different perspectives?

Letters From The Earth is a good piece of writing that one may see as a pleasant fiction

or an awful challenge or even a blasphemous piece of shit. My point in writing here
about it, is that somewhere, somewhen, someone did us wrong by shoving it
on the topmost shelf of the furthest bookcase of the library of human writing. I share
the information that this piece of writing exists, so that more people may have
the opportunity to know that it was here all along, and perhaps read it themselves.
I feel fuller for having read it, and don’t I say that this blog is about the things
that save my life?


Samuel Lanhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) 
30 November 1885 - 21 April 1910

How The Temple Came To Be

“Why, Master, why?” asked the plump little myopic woman. She sat reverently at his feet, gazing adoringly up at his shining face (for it was a hot day) and waited for his answer.

He did not answer, and simply closed his eyes. She waited. A few moments of waiting meant nothing to her, for her search for him had been long and hard. It would have been even longer and harder, had she not known, before she set out on her search, that the one she sought was male. It would have taken her twice as long if she had had to sift through both males and females. Fortunately, despite her myopia, she had a good optician and was therefore a fairly well-read woman, and she already knew that all the answers to all the questions lay only with those of her species blessed with external genitalia. 

After several minutes of waiting for Master’s eyes to reopen, she pondered for a second if her search had been long and hard enough. Would something longer and harder have been more satisfying?  But no! No! She berated herself. One must not ask questions! She knew this to be true, for Master himself had told her so. Her soul cringed. It was a weakness, she knew; a weakness to be kept hidden and silent like the complicated and somewhat messy bits of her own inferior and interior genitalia, that, like her, was born only to be a vessel to receive.

“Forgive me, Master,” she murmured, and he opened his eyes. 

“Oh, all right,” he said. “And because you recognise your faults, I shall,” he paused for emphasis, “I SHALL answer your question!”

The plump little myopic woman and all those around her, huddled at Master’s feet, gasped in unison, and in awe, and also in curiosity. They leaned forward to better hear what Master had to say next.

“You ask me why,” Master said, after taking a sip of green tea. He paused to savour the added flavours (all natural) of lemon and honey. “You ask me why it is that people who follow different paths cannot live in harmony with one another. You ask me why it is that people who have been taught to lead good and charitable lives cannot fully extend their goodness and charity to those who follow different paths and worship different gods, although their gods bear similar messages.”

“Yes,” the plump little myopic woman muttered miserably, wishing she could have a cigarette right now, but it was not to be.

“It is a good question,” Master said. “Or a good paragraph of questions.”

The plump little myopic woman was relieved. She still wanted her cigarette, but she supposed it could wait.

“It is a good question,” Master repeated. “But it is an unnecessary question.”

The plump little myopic woman and all those around her were stunned into absolute silence. They did not know what to say about this, mostly because Master had not yet taught them what to say. He continued.

“You say that people on different paths cannot live with one another. Yet here and all over the world, they do. They are held together by an unseen force that will never be blighted. Though they may try, this unseen force will always ensure that they can never get as far away from each other as they’d like.”

“An unseen force?” the plump little myopic woman asked. “What is this unseen force, Master? Tell us of it.”

“I like to call it Gravity,” Master replied gravely. “Yes, Gravity. This is the unseen force that holds people together. Without it, the world would be a mess of strings and cables and chains and ankle weights. Gravity it is, that keeps our feet on the ground and our heads in the air. This is as it should be.”

The same afternoon, they began construction of the temple to Gravity. It was to be made of the wood of an apple tree. No, wait. Several apple trees. Here they would sing praises to Gravity. Here they would bow their heads to bring themselves closer to Gravity. Here they would make weighty offerings to ensure that Gravity would never be displeased with them or forsake them, leaving them footloose and fancy free in the dark  infinities of the universe. 

Master saw that it was good, and decided to take a nap.

The plump little myopic woman decided that Gravity would be pleased with her if she put on a few more pounds, and ate a chocolate-covered doughnut. It was good. Then she sat down to record Master’s words in writing, so that future generations could see for themselves these written words, for everyone knows that what is written must be true.

#

Irrefutable evidence that good opticians do exist, though they be expensive, 

and come with no guarantee that thou shalt thereby be a more beautiful person:

Take your pick.

Matter or Energy.

Garden or Fire.

Peace or Freedom.

Hope or Truth.

Haircut.

Oops, I did it again. Opening myself up to the endless comments of
you-look-much-nicer-with-hair and why-did-you-do-this and
are-you-depressed and and and ad nauseam. Sigh. To save you
the bother, here are my responses:

I know, and I don't care.
I don't know, and it doesn't matter.
All my life, what about you?

Sadly, most of the people who feel compelled to give me sartorial
advice do not read my blog.

I have not yet exactly pinpointed why I have this need to keep buzzing
my head. I had wanted to try it for some time, if only to make sure
that there was no 666 mark! Well, more realistically, to see if there
were any childhood scars that had been hidden (there weren't,
no physical ones, at any rate).

Then I saw Natalie Portman in that delicious film, V for Vendetta,
and that settled the matter.

All I know is that it somehow makes me feel powerful and
humble at the same time. It's incredibly freeing. It can be my shield
or my sword. It can work like a hijab or a big fucking billboard
that says "Go away."

It's also incredibly TIDY. I love not having to worry about how
my hair looks (it always looks the same, no cowlicks, no bed-head)
and when I'm sweeping, I never have to deal with strands of hair
around which dust bunnies form (unless friends or family visit;
they usually manage to leave behind a strand or two).

And it feels - in the literal sense - fantastic. There's something
exquisite about holding your freshly buzzed head in your hands,
letting your fingers run down your skull. Velvet in one direction,
velcro in the other.

Oh, and by the way, that story about Samson? Big fat lie.
I blame (but of course) patriarchy.

If only every woman would try it.

Tomoyo and Tibet.

She looks fragile, but I don't think she is. Her skin seems
translucent, framed delicately by strands of soft, straight hair
that have fallen out of her ponytail. She speaks softly and gently,
but her words are purposeful and strong.

I see all of this in  her work. Each piece of Tomoyo Ihaya's
artwork is unique, and has been crafted with care and thought,
lovingly, to tell a story.

Although the story is one, it has over a hundred narrators:  the men
and women, the young and old, the mothers, fathers and children,
the friends, the monks. Each one a Tibetan who saw self-immolation
as the only way to protest the Chinese occupation of their home.

The ethereal texture of Tomoyo's work contrasts so starkly
with its dark, distressing subject. Perhaps that's what made it
sear itself into my mind and heart. It was hard to walk up to
each picture and look at it, and read the little pencilled captions
underneath. I read how old they were, and who they left behind.
It would have been easier to walk away.

I read of cruelties and injustices. I read of their last words,
and their last moments. It was painful, but, I felt, vital for me
to visit each and every person represented there. It was important
for me to put my fears and discomforts aside, and pay my respects.

Sometimes, I do this in graveyards:  every tombstone I pass, I say
the name out loud, imagining that there is a soul stirring somewhere
at the once-familiar sound, who finds some comfort in knowing that
their name is still on someone's lips, if only a sympathetic stranger's.

I do this because of a movie I watched earlier this year, in which
a dying woman tells her friend:  We die three times. The first
is when you take your last breath. The second is when your body
turns to dust. But the final death is when your name is spoken
for the last time.

Those 126 Tibetans are gone. Their evidence stolen away and
hidden, their headlines muffled, and the world could easily go
on its way as though they had never existed.

But Tomoyo speaks their names. She speaks their names with
the beauty, skill and gift of her art, and draws me in, making it
easier for me to look at the things I would rather hide from,
holding my hand as I walk past the tombstones.

Her work is showing at 1 Shanthi Road, and today is the last day.
Don't turn away. Don't close your eyes. Your soul needs it. And
so do theirs. Go on up there and take her hand.

Post script:  After I finished writing this, I came across another piece 
on Tomoyo, beautifully written by Sudha Pillai. Click here to read it.

Another random depressed doodle.

And here's another, no doubt from the same era. I think I was
being a bit cynical with the saccharine twirly "bloom where
you're planted" cliche, because that whole doodle with the scrawl
and barbed wire and wall screams "TRAPPED!" to me. But the sky's
full of stars, and the earth full of what might be badly-drawn earthworms,
so it's not an entirely hopeless doodle. Unlike my dress sense.

War horse.

It's the name of a film I'm watching right now on Star World, about a boy and his horse, and a war. The horse goes to war, and the boy follows. It's a lovely film, but it's also disturbing and sad, and its terribly brutal depictions of what war is sadden and sicken me.

I never cease to be surprised and disturbed at the glory so many people associate with war. The crowds cheering on the soldiers who are heading out to slaughter and be slaughtered. The triumph of the victors. To me, there is nothing glorious or noble in a victory of violence, no matter what the cause, no matter what the end.

Wars have kept some of us safe, and turned the lives of others into days and nights of terror and uncertainty. They have driven back dictators and castrated the power-hungry. They have killed far too many innocents, and seen power snatched from one greedy fist by another. They have defeated "the enemy" and given many people more freedoms, perhaps. They have defeated many others' faith in humanity, and crippled many bodies and souls. They have been the catalyst for many medical and technological advances. But not all of them.

War is here, part of humanity as much as weddings and birthdays, it seems. It's not necessary, but it's here. There will always be proponents of non-violence, but there will always be violence. Maybe one invites the other. It seems to be part of us, just as this human capacity for both deep love and trust as well as deep hatred and suspicion, for courage and sacrifice and nobility alongside fear and pettiness and greed.

Perhaps that is where the glory and nobility come into war, when individuals find room alongside their hate or anger or orders or desires, which are only human, for their humaneness, which is also only human, but harder to maintain under stress. That's where it is, I think. Not in the army, nor the nation, nor the cause. It's in the individual soldier who stands to fight, and somehow comes through the horror of war still able to feel love. I'm not sure if I'm right or wrong, but this is what I feel. The glories of war are not because of the violence, but in spite of it.

*

One thing struck me in this film - actually it is what made me decide to write this post in the first place, although I've moved the first paragraphs I wrote down here, to end the post:

Every so often, there's a scene in which a soldier happens to be smoking a cigarette. Big white sub-titles appear over the picture:  SMOKING CAUSES CANCER. SMOKING KILLS.

Yes it does. But we are a funny world, aren't we? I'd like to live in one where the big white sub-titles stay on all through the picture, and they say:
WAR IS CANCER. WAR KILLS.

*

War won't be going anywhere soon, I suppose. But I can always hope that we would at least look at it with truthful eyes, and maybe that would be the beginning of its end.

"I want to live."

She died this morning, the young woman who was gang-raped
earlier this month. She died.

Sometimes I forget that I too have been a victim of rape. As
Nilanjana Roy said so beautifully in her blog earlier today,
"There is only so much darkness you can swallow."

(Click here to read Ms. Roy's post, For Anonymous)

I'm not a victim any more. I am a survivor. That girl, in the two
weeks she lived after her rape, she was a survivor too. But I can't
compare myself to her. With her insides ripped to pieces, with
all that had been done to her, in the raw freshness of her pain,
she still said to her mother, "I want to live."

I don't know if I could have that kind of courage. But I too,
wanted to live, and I have been able to. So her message IS
my message, although it took me many years to say it. It's
the message of so many millions around the world - generation
upon generation of women, girls and boys - who have taken
the worst kind of pain, brutality, betrayal, fear and humiliation,
but somehow manage to say, in one way or another, these four words:

"I want to live."

This is the message I'm taking forward with me tonight, into
tomorrow. Not a rant for beheading, hanging or castration.
I don't want my tomorrow to be a day where I respond to violence
with still more violence.

Tonight I lit a candle, in awe of her courage, and in grief for
her unanswered wish and her death, and in grief for everyone
who has known that pain, and for everyone who lives in fear,
and for the little child who still lives within me.

It's not easy to rein in rage, to say yes to justice without saying yes
to violence. To look at a man, any man, and not wonder if he has
the potential to rape. It's not easy, but it's possible. And I think
it's important for my humanity. So tonight, I lit a candle, and
tomorrow, I want to live. With dignity, and non-violence.

Questions

Where are the GIRL philosophers?
Where are the artists, the writers, the leaders, the stars?
Why do the books still talk of man and mankind
When half of us aren't?
Why do I have so few role models?
My grand niece has more, now, than I did.

I did have a few.
But it's not enough.

Too many people who could have changed the world
Are probably in the kitchen or out fetching water.
Washing socks and faking orgasms to keep someone happy.
Finding real joy in their children.
Happy enough with what they have.

Not a bad life.
But is it enough?

See Dick speak.

Say hello to Top Cop.
Say hello to the cop who's top of the cops.
(Hello Top Top Cop)

Top Cop says
women get raped because of the way they dress.
(Silly silly fashion victims)

Top Cop says
men rape when they eat food that gives good "josh" and makes them naughtier.
(Naughty naughty rapists)

Would Top Cop say
it was her own fault for being all dressed up and out so late?
(Pretty provocative Cinderella)

Would Top Cop say
those eleven men would have let her pass if they'd just had salad for dinner?
(Hearty hungry heterosexuals)

What WOULD Top Cop say
to that woman who was gang-raped on her way home from church after Midnight Mass on December 25th, 2011?
(Merry merry Christmas)


See Dick speak on Times Now TV

Click on the links above to read the news reports about Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police's views on rape

A hands-on experience.

It's not a remarkable picture, and of no one in particular, just
one of those random faces I like to draw. But I discovered
something interesting after I'd finished. The face tells a sad
little story. If you hold your hand over the right side of the face,
you'll see that on the left is a young face, full of sorrow. And when
you cover the left side, the right is an older face, hardened with bitterness.

I think the story is that within a person who may seem sour or cynical,
there may be a history of some sadness or despair that is still carried
with them every day.

The moral: Judge not. We do it all the time, and we do not have
the right qualifications.

Before the monsoon

There are days like this. When I feel dry, bare, buffeted.
All around her, the others still wear green; this tree is out of sync
with the seasons. She follows some other rhythm, some African beat
that only she hears. Her pods have been emptied of their cellophane seeds,
ransacked by wild parakeets and squirrels. When they fall, these pods
look like canoes. But though the skies are grey and the wind promises rain,
it lies, and so the canoes rot slowly in the graveyard at her feet.

P.S. This is an African flame tree that grows at the edge of the graveyard behind our terrace.